


Such Spirited Words!

by KChan88



Series: She Was Bound to Love You [13]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Assault, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual!Christine, Blood and Injury, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Lesbian Character, Lesbian!Raoul, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rule 63, Swordfighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChan88/pseuds/KChan88
Summary: What if Raoul de Chagny was a woman?A series featuring the major events (and a few things in-between) from the Phantom of the Opera, with a gender-bent, lesbian Raoul (and a bisexual Christine). ALW based, with Leroux elements.Scene 9: A ghost and a girl clash. An angel loses his wings. And two young lovers face down a man determined to destroy them.(The Graveyard, Pt. 2)
Relationships: Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Series: She Was Bound to Love You [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627735
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	Such Spirited Words!

**Author's Note:**

> If you've seen the infamous 2004 film, you know there is a swordfight between Erik and Raoul. I actually don't hate this swordfight like so many others do! And it did inspire something you'll see here, but I hope to have improved on it. Enjoy!

Raoul feels content when she awakes. Given her nightmares, given everything since the Masquerade, that’s a strange and surely fleeting feeling, but she slept soundly last night for the first time in days, and that’s certainly worth something. She smiles before she even opens her eyes, remembering last night. The way Christine said _kiss me, Raoul_. The way their lips met. Their clothes falling every which way to the floor like they couldn’t get to each other fast enough. They laughed and they whispered, melting into each other’s touch.

God, Raoul is _so_ in love.

Deeply as she feels everything, the intensity of this is even more than usual, and it hasn’t faded over the past months as the two of them fell into step with each other, their childhood affection growing into something else, but every bit as real. Every bit as magical. More. She thinks of the half-written song tucked away in her nightstand at home, notes scattered across the page. It’s just a simple piece for the violin, but she hopes it will convey her feelings. She wants to finish it before whatever marriage ceremony she and Christine put together, private and simple as it may be.

She’s no prodigy, but she does love music, and continued lessons long after she left the seashore, always thinking of the bright little girl, her father, and violin music soaring through the air.

She hopes Christine will like it. Perhaps one day there might be words, and Christine could lend her voice to the piece. For all the ghost’s talk of Christine’s voice, he misses the fact that Raoul loves it, too.

She just also loves the person behind it.

Christine’s come into herself, lately. She’s more confident. More comfortable in their relationship, and despite all they’re going through, Raoul is happy to see it. It’s all she’s ever wanted, to see Christine Daae happy. Every time Christine gets that sparkle in her eyes, that sparkle that says _I love you, Raoul,_ and pulls her into a kiss, Raoul could die a little, because this beautiful, spirited, talented woman wants her, and only her. At first, Raoul was leading Christine gently, carefully, down the path, ready to understand if Christine decided to turn back. Now they walk side by side, hand in hand, and it’s Raoul’s own miracle.

She grins.

There’s no rehearsal today, for once, so perhaps they can simply stay here and indulge a bit.

“Hmmm…” she mumbles, cracking her eyes open and reaching over to the other side of the bed. Except, Christine isn’t there, though the sheets are still warm, like she couldn’t have been gone for too long. “Christine?” Raoul calls out again. “Come back to bed, won’t you?”

There’s no answer.

“Christine?” Raoul says, a little panicked now, but there’s nothing to worry about, surely, there’s…

She sits up, wrapping the sheet around her and spotting a note on the table next to the bed.

_Went to the cemetery. I’ll be back later this morning. I love you._

Raoul’s stomach drops.

All right, well…no. There’s no need to panic. Christine’s certainly more than allowed to go visit her father’s grave alone, though Raoul feels strongly that she perhaps shouldn’t do so just now, not with the ghost planning God only knows what. Not that Erik is known for leaving the opera house, but it’s not beyond the realm of reason. If he was willing to walk into the crowd at the Masquerade ball, there’s nothing to say he wouldn’t leave the confines of his playground. But he doesn’t know where the flat is, where the cemetery is, so surely. Yes. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

She can’t shake the feeling of dread, but she will not be strange, or possessive. Christine has enough of that to be going on with. She does wish that Christine wouldn’t have gone out by herself until this is all over and done with, but she has, and Raoul is loathe to go chasing her down over it. She doesn’t want Christine to think she doesn’t trust her, and there are too many people already bossing her about, at the opera.

It’s daylight. They’re not in the opera house. They’re playing the ghost’s game, which should temporarily satisfy him.

Except…well he did corner her, yesterday. She wishes Christine had told her about it earlier, though she can’t say she was wrong about waiting, because Raoul might well have stormed right back into the opera house, which wouldn’t have been the best idea, all things considered.

But no. No no. She’ll get dressed, and she’ll go get breakfast and be here when Christine gets back. She will respect Christine’s choice, even if she’s worried. There’s a little café down the street they like, which should be open now. She stretches, searching the floor for her clothes and finding everything, oddly, but her waistcoat, which seems to be missing. It will be much easier, when Christine moves in with her, to have all her clothes—and quite honestly, Marie’s help—in one place. She has a fresh set here, but it’s not worth it only for the café, in the early morning. She freshens up a touch and dresses, tying her hair back loosely with the ribbon that got caught, giving it a second chance. Her corset feels like it’s a bit off and she still doesn’t know where her damned waistcoat went, but it’ll do for a short trek outside.

She’s a touch too anxious to give her clothing more thought.

She steps outside, and there’s something lying near the door.

Paper. Paper with writing on it.

She picks it up, making out the words.

_Some notes on Aminta’s songs, from your Angel of Music._

Raoul’s blood runs cold. Her breath grows sharp in her chest. Her hands shake.

He was here.

He was _here_.

She found this place to keep Christine safe, to keep them both safe, and now…

When was he here? For how long and did he…

Oh god.

The graveyard. What if he followed Christine to the graveyard? Did he just plan to leave this here and then find an opportunity, instead?

She has to go. She has to…

She opens the door, tossing the papers into the flat and making sure the lock is done twice over.

They won’t be coming back here for anything until the ghost is gone.

She dashes into the street, searching for a fiacre. She needs to get to the cemetery now, and walking won’t do. There’s no time to go home for her carriage. She finds one after a few minutes, the driver looking taken aback at her desperation and staring at something on her shirt.

Raoul looks down, realizing there’s a pink streak across the collar.

Christine’s rouge.

Something about it makes her heart break. They let their guard down for one moment, and now they’re paying for it.

She gives the driver her destination, urging him to get there as quickly as he may, and she’ll pay him double.

Every minute in the carriage is agony.

What if he takes her? What if he hurts her? What if he…

Ten horrible scenarios swirl through Raoul’s mind, and she has to calm down, she has to think, for Christine’s sake. She doesn’t know what she’ll be facing when she arrives. She’s furious the ghost would take advantage of such a sacred place.

The fiacre arrives, and Raoul all but throws herself out the door.

“Will you wait?” she asks the driver. “For twenty francs?”

The driver’s eyes widen. “That’s more than I get in weeks, mademoiselle.” He furrows his gray eyebrows, looking a little concerned. “I’ll wait as long as you like for that. Is everything all right? Do you need the police?”

“No,” Raoul says, shaking her head before thanking him and wrenching open the gate to the graveyard.

She _does_ need the police, really, but she doubts they’ll believe her when she says the Opera Ghost is chasing down a woman in a cemetery, and she doesn’t have time to waste, besides. They haven’t exactly been as helpful as she’d like, when it comes to preparations for Don Juan, and she’s going to have to pull Philippe in on it, even if she wanted to do it on her own.

Her existence as a woman is getting in the way of that, no matter how much money she has. Her existence as a woman, and rumors. Gossip about her relationship after the fateful Masquerade ball.

She runs across the snow-covered grass toward the front of the eerie, empty space.

And then, she sees them.

And she hears the ghost.

It’s the first time she’s heard him sing, and that already hypnotic voice is otherworldly. Gooseflesh races up her arms when she makes out the words.

_Have you forgotten your angel?_

As she gets closer, the sight before her makes her heart sink.

Christine, squatting near her father’s grave with her hands over her ears and her eyes shut, whispering something over and over again.

_No. No. No._

The ghost, a violin in hand, standing on the stone steps leading to the nearby chapel. He’s playing the instrument, the instrument that’s a symbol of the man Christine came to see, and Raoul wants to _kill_ him. Right now. She’s never wanted to kill anyone, but she wants to knock this man’s head against the steps and leave him for dead for doing this to Christine. She wants to make him bleed. She wants to, but she won’t. She couldn’t, anyway, because what weapon does she have? She breathes in deep, letting the impulse pass through her so she can calm down enough to think.

The demon keeps singing the same phrase, the words echoing like a curse inside the confines of the graveyard. Inside Raoul’s head.

_I am your Angel of Music. Come to me Angel of Music._

The music curls into the air, and Christine pulls in tighter toward herself and she’s crying and she’s…

She’s fighting his voice in her head. Raoul can see it.

She needs to help her win.

“Christine!” Raoul calls out, running and running and running, the snow crunching beneath her Oxford half-boots. She chastises herself for not lacing them up tighter this morning, because she doesn’t want to slip and be vulnerable to any attack from the ghost.

At least she’s not wearing her irritating, and far less practical, opera shoes.

The ghost’s bow squeaks across the strings, drawing forth a sharp, ugly note.

Raoul pays it no mind.

“Christine!” she shouts again, drawing closer.

Christine still doesn’t seem to hear her, even if the music is gone.

“You are no angel, sir!” Raoul shouts, sliding into the small area of grass between the chapel steps and Gustave Daae’s tombstone, her boot leaving a half-circle smear in the snow. “You’re torturing her, can’t you see that? The one thing we have in common is care for Christine, and if you do care, you’ll stop this.”

The ghost _laughs._

He laughs and he laughs and he _laughs._

“Bravo, mademoiselle, such spirited words!” He puts the violin down, ripping his eyes away from Christine and focusing on Raoul with spine-tingling intrigue. “Arrived to save the day, have you? Christine doesn’t need saving from me.”

Raoul spits on the ground and runs over toward Christine instead, squatting down beside her and speaking with kind urgency.

“Christine, Christine I’m here.” She takes Christine’s face in her hands, making her fiancée meet her eyes. They’re blank, at first, even as tears spill out of them. “Darling, listen to me, this man…” she points at Erik, who is pulling something out from beneath his cape, and they need to move, she knows they need to _go_. “This _thing_ is not your father. I knew your father, and he was kind and generous and warm and he never would have tortured you like this.”

Christine’s eyes widen, and a soft, broken sob bursts past her lips. It’s then that Raoul realizes she’s wearing the old red scarf, patched up again and again. The red scarf Raoul dove into the sea to rescue when she was nine years old.

“Raoul?” Christine asks, relief flooding into every crevice of her voice.

“Yes,” Raoul whispers, hugging Christine tight to her for a fleeting moment. “It’s me. I came to find you.”

There’s not more time to talk, not when there’s a loud, echoing BANG from somewhere nearby. Raoul pulls Christine behind her, turning around to see a pume of smoke near the steps.

And the ghost walking down toward them right through it.

“More tricks, I see?” Raoul asks, reaching behind her for Christine’s hand, desperate to keep her away from this man. “More violence?”

Erik pulls a second something out from under his cloak. It looks like an old glass powder flask, with a fuse.

“Let’s see how far you’re willing to go, shall we, de Chagny?” Erik says, his voice slithering out like a snake. “Have something else to say, do you? Let’s hear it then!”

“You can’t win her love by making her your prisoner!”

Raoul shouts the words, and all her pain, all her grief, comes spilling out too, the words sharp and jagged and she would stab him with them, if she could. She knows she shouldn’t make him angry, but he’s been looking through their window, he’s been murdering people, he’s tormenting Christine and she can’t take it anymore. She can’t take this man demeaning her and being abjectly cruel to Christine. A tiny fragment of her feels for what he’s been through, for what Madame Giry told her the night of the Masquerade, but he doesn’t get to harm other people because of his own pain. He doesn’t get to dictate and ruin lives.

The ugliest part of him is not beneath that mask.

“Insolent girl!” the ghost calls out, rage simmering beneath his words. Danger.

“Raoul, stop,” Christine pleads, holding so tight to Raoul’s hand that it hurts.

“Stay behind me,” Raoul whispers, backing them both up. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

“He’s going to hurt _you_ …” Christine begins, but it turns into a scream when Erik throws the second explosive a few feet from them, some of the glass shattering near Raoul’s feet.

“Raoul!” Christine screams again as they both fall to the ground, more smoke temporarily obscuring their vision.

They still don’t let go of each other’s hand.

The smoke clears, and Erik is mere feet away from them now, and he’s holding something in his hands.

Raoul’s sword cane.

He must have taken it from box 5 the night of Il Muto. It’s the only answer.

Raoul and Christine scramble up off the ground, and Christine refuses to let Raoul force her behind again, standing close by her side, instead. If things weren’t so dire, Raoul would smile at little at the courage. Christine’s always been so full of spirit, and that’s what the ghost never saw.

He only saw her grief, and took advantage of it.

“How would you like me to be the Angel of Death?” the ghost asks, twirling Raoul’s sword cane with one hand and lifting his cloak with another, making his own weapon visible. “If you were a man I would challenge you to a duel, perhaps, but you’re not, are you?” He pauses, the sharp, glinting eyes peering at Raoul beneath the white half-mask. “I had thought to return this to you outside your door with my notes for Christine since you finally decided to do as I requested and put on my opera. But then…well I saw through your window that you didn’t heed my other warning.” He gives a pointed look at the rouge stain on Raoul’s shirt. “I told you to give up whatever you think you’re doing with Christine.”

Christine gasps, and Raoul’s blood runs lava-hot.

“You wretch!” Raoul shouts. “I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” Erik questions, taking one step forward as they step back. He lifts the sword cane. “Do you want this? Do you want to fight me, girl?”

He steps closer and they step back again, but Raoul’s loathe to run to the fiacre, loathe to turn her back when he has two weapons and she has none, it’s too dangerous, it’s too…

Christine lets go of her hand, and at first, Raoul panics, she wants to reach back and out and pull Christine away.

Until she hears the word on Christine’s breath, and realizes what she’s doing.

“Angel,” Christine says, soft, sweet, pliant, and all the things Erik wants her to be.

The ghost’s head jerks toward Christine, and they’re a foot apart, at most, his fingers on the sword cane loosening just a touch. Raoul dives forward, seizing the cane with one sweaty hand and Christine with the other. Christine does go behind her now, and Raoul’s forced to let go of her hand to pull out the blade.

Shock flickers across the ghost’s face for the barest second before he rearranges it.

Shock that Christine tricked him.

“Turning her against me I see,” Erik hisses.

Raoul shakes her head. “You did that yourself.”

Raoul points her blade at the man who pretended to be the spirit of Gustave Daae, and for a moment all she can see is Gustave’s smiling face, all she can hear is his big, booming laugher as he swept a giggling Christine up into his arms. She remembers returning to the sea a few years after that first, fateful, childhood summer only to see him diminished by illness, a quieter, adolescent Christine set to caring for him.

That was when Gustave gave Raoul his old violin, and she’s cherished it ever since.

She loved Christine’s father too, and she will not let his man tarnish his memory anymore. Christine’s grief, her memories, deserve better. Gustave himself deserves better.

She doesn’t carry this cane, just for show, or a statement. She carries it because one night when she was sixteen men followed her home when she was out walking alone, taunting her strange clothes and calling her names. She managed to get away with only one sock to the jaw and without what might have been their more insidious intent. She got the longed-for fencing lessons she’d been asking Philippe for afterward—a coincidence, she blamed the bruise on a fall—and then bought this. Easily concealed, she could carry it and have something to protect herself if that ever happened again, and without telling her brother why, so he wouldn’t have to worry, because he was always worrying.

Looking back at it, she probably should have just told him the truth. But he and Juliette have been her parents, really, her entire life, with her mother dead and her grieving father kind but distant until she lost him at twelve and was officially an orphan. Even though she fights with Eloise, Philippe and Juliette have nurtured her, cared for her, accepted her, and she wanted to handle that particular thing on her own.

The ghost pulls out his blade.

“Stay back Christine,” Raoul whispers. “Please stay back.”

Neither of them is ready for this, but Raoul’s at least had lessons, and she doesn’t want Christine accidentally getting struck. She makes a mental note to maybe teach Christine, one day, if they come out the other side of this. But right now, she can’t let the ghost get a hold of her. Her body might be in danger, but the more prominent threat is against Christine’s own mind, her safety inside herself.

Raoul can take a wound to protect that.

Erik taps her blade with his own, but it’s more like he’s toying with her rather than actually planning to attack, but he’s not above it, she knows that for certain.

“Scared of me, mademoiselle?”

“Never.” Raoul stays still as their blades remain crossed, trying to listen to Christine’s _Raoul please_ from earlier, trying not to provoke his rage, but she wants to _hurt_ him. But that’s not who she is, is it? Spilling blood from rage. If he aims for her she’ll strike, she’ll defend herself, but she…

She’s not sure she could kill him outright, even if she wanted to. He’s taller. Stronger. But then, what does he know about proper swordplay, anyway? She may have that, and speed, as her advantage.

Her objective needs to be to get them away. Fast.

The ghost removes his blade.

“You ought to be.”

His voice goes dark and deep and dangerous and he lunges toward her. Raoul parries, flicking the blade away from herself and moving back.

“Please!” Christine shouts, not using _Angel_ , again. “Please just leave her alone! I beg of you.”

Raoul doesn’t want Christine to beg anything of this man, this murderer, this wretch who spied on their most private moment through a window. Who wrote songs like that about Christine and said _perform this in front of a crowd, or else._

Erik turns his gaze toward Christine, and there’s a touch of sympathy there, a touch of…something softer. A flash of…well Raoul wouldn’t call it love, exactly, though it must be, to the ghost. Christine’s spoken of the singing lessons given by a voice in the dark, and only a voice, but she’s spoken only sparingly of her single night in the lair beneath the opera house, her words tangling up like she can’t make sense of them, like he hypnotized her with music, somehow.

 _The strange dream ended when I took off his mask_ , Christine told her one evening, her words trailing off as if she wasn’t sure she was right, exactly. As if the journey to the lair, and everything that happened in it, might have been the start of the nightmare.

For just a fraction of a moment, Raoul sees a teacher and the student who trusted him, before it all crumbles to dust.

“Christine,” Erik says, his voice smooth and condescending, like he doesn’t really see her, as an entire person, even if he thinks he does. If Raoul were to offer advice, she wouldn’t suggest patronizing Christine Daae. But years of trickery, of the abuse that’s now so clear, have made the ghost think he can get away with it, even if the spark in Christine’s eyes say _no more_. “This…” he glances over at Raoul. “…woman, is in the way of everything that matters to you. Our lessons. Your career. Music itself.”

He snatches for Christine’s wrist, but Christine only steps back, and Raoul steps closer.

“Don’t even think about it,” Raoul protests. “Over my dead body will you take Christine anywhere.”

There’s a sharp, held back sob from Christine, and Raoul realizes she shouldn’t have said that. Not here in the graveyard where Christine came to visit her dead father, but she can’t take it back now.

The ghost laughs, and he _looks_ like a phantom here in the growing daylight, that black cape fluttering in the early morning breeze.

“That’s the idea.”

The unabashed confession rings in the silence, and Raoul doesn’t have time to answer because the ghost is coming for her now. Their blades clang together again and again and again, and it isn’t the precise strategies Raoul learned in her lessons, it’s just chaos and anger and sweat and _hatred_. It’s metal scraping against metal and she doesn’t know how long the sword-cane will hold up, because it wasn’t meant for this. Erik bears down, his sword pressed hard against hers, the sharp edge perilously close to Raoul’s face. She doesn’t let him back her into anything, and she pulls her blade out from underneath his at just the right moment, parrying fast when he comes down again.

Her arms hurt. Her ribbons slips down her hair, strands falling out and sticking to her face.

She has to get them _out_ of here.

The story Raoul’s been telling herself for months starts melting away. The story that she could be the hero, that she could just whisk Christine away from all of this without either of them getting hurt.

Erik, the phantom, this ghost in front of her, is determined to do the hurting. Raoul wonders what drew him to Christine. Was it simply the intersection of her voice and her vulnerability? Or did he see something in her, the things that Raoul sees? What were his intentions when this started, and when did they turn into an opera that is nothing more than an unwanted, drawn-out seduction spattered with blood and pretty words? 

She chances one quick glance when Christine calls out her name, and she remembers how she felt this morning, so in love, so safe, just for a moment.

It’s all gone now. Not the love, obviously, but the safety. It’s been utterly ripped away.

Raoul sees her chance when Erik slows for just a fraction of a second. The tip of her blade makes contact with his upper arm, drawing a thin line of blood. It’s mostly superficial, but it’s enough to distract him. Surprise him. He may be a genius, but he isn’t a swordsman. She’d barely call herself such, but she knows something, at least.

And then, finally, Raoul sees the ghost turn into a man.

He slips on a patch of snow, his grip on his sword loosening, and Raoul takes her chance, swinging hard and knocking the blade out of his hand with all her might. It goes flying just as Raoul’s own breaks, and Christine seizes her hand, leading them both away. They sprint across the graveyard hand in hand, a furious scream echoing behind them with all the power of an otherworldly devil.

The sound of a cracking, crashing, creaking chandelier resounds in Raoul’s memory.

And she is afraid.

“So be it! Now let it be war upon you both!”

Another of the strange powder flasks explodes at their heels, but it’s too far distant to make any impact other than a loud, resonating BANG that rings in Raoul’s ears.

“The fiacre there in the street, that’s ours,” Raoul whispers close in Christine’s ear.

Christine doesn’t question it, but she also doesn’t let Raoul tell her to go in first.

“He’s not trying to _murder me_ , Raoul, get inside, I’m right behind you,” Christine insists.

Raoul doesn’t argue.

“Are you both all right?” the fiacre driver calls out, looking alarmed at the broken blade in Raoul’s hand, but Christine only says, polite but urgent “we’re fine monsieur, but we do need to get out of here quickly, if that’s possible, please.” She turns toward Raoul. “To Philippe, Raoul?”

Raoul nods, still breathing hard, and Christine gives him the address. Something about that makes Raoul feel the tiniest bit better, like maybe, just maybe, Christine might start thinking of it as home, one day.

The driver complies.

“I paid him to wait,” Raoul explains once they’re sitting across from one another in the small space, and she drops the wrecked sword cane to the floor, her arms aching. “I…I saw you were gone, and I swear, I was just going to get breakfast for us, I didn’t want to bother you, but then I stepped outside and he…he’d left a note for you, outside the door. And then I knew something was wrong.”

Christine barely seems to hear her. She takes Raoul’s face in her hands, almost too tight, searching for any signs of injury.

The ringing in Raoul’s ears lessens, but it doesn’t quite let up.

“Are you all right?” Christine demands. “Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Raoul answers, startled at the tone. “I’m just sore and tired, that’s all.”

“Raoul you can’t do this!” Christine exclaims, letting go of Raoul’s face and edging toward hysteria. Raoul doesn’t like using the word _hysteria_ given how often women’s concerns are dismissed by speaking it, but this well and truly sounds so. “You can’t fight him every step of the way. What did you do with the notes he left?”

Raoul’s head starts pounding, thrumming hard behind her right eye. God, she wants some water, suddenly, her mouth dry.

She felt so rested an hour ago. Like she could take on the world. The ghost. Everything.

“I…I threw them back in the flat, Christine.”

“He’ll be angry. He’ll be angry if I don’t do exactly what he wants in that performance.” Christine puts her face in her hands as the fiacre goes over a bump in the street. “Raoul you can’t challenge him. You can’t throw yourself in his way like this anymore. You did it during the Masquerade, too.”

Raoul bites her lip. “I just wanted to help you. I didn’t…I shouldn’t have spit at him, I grant, taunted him, but he wasn’t just going to let me waltz out of the graveyard with you.”

“I don’t need…I don’t need help all the time,” Christine says. “I don’t need you to prove something.”

Raoul’s exhaustion, the fear she barely allows herself, mounts, and she says something she swore she wouldn’t. “Why did you go somewhere alone?” she shoots back. “You don’t tell me everything, Christine. You didn’t tell me about seeing that madman yesterday. You wouldn’t tell me about him when this first began, either. I can’t help you if you keep secrets about a situation we’re both in!” Raoul shouts those words, and she regrets it, immediately, but then Christine’s shouting too, and Raoul hates the ghost even more, she _hates_ him for making them argue.

“What help are you to me if you’re _dead_ , Raoul? He wants to kill you, can’t you _see_ that?”

Raoul’s eyes go wide, a few tears slipping out. Christine’s hand goes to her mouth. Silence hangs between them, thick and awkward.

“I’m sorry,” Christine whispers. “My love, I’m so sorry.”

Raoul runs a hand through her hair. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted and I…I don’t want to be possessive, that’s _his_ job, and you are perfectly able to do things on your own but right now I just… _no one_ could do this on their own, is all.”

“You quite literally just crossed swords with someone for me,” Christine says, even softer, and her hand goes to Raoul’s cheek. “And here I am being unkind to you. I just…I was so afraid you’d die right there next to my father’s grave, and it would be my fault for getting you involved in this. For falling for…for his tricks. When I saw him pull out that sword I thought I was going to retch. I thought maybe he would hear me, when I begged him to leave you alone. But he didn’t.”

“Christine…” Raoul grasps the tips of Christine’s fingers. “Not a single thing about this is your fault. It’s his.”

Tears fill Christine’s eyes, and she wipes them away, looking determined. “I ….Sit with me? Please?”

Raoul moves, laying down across the small seat as Christine coaxes her head into her lap. Raoul has to scrunch up tight to make it work, but she certainly won’t say no, some of the tension in her back easing at Christine’s touch.

“I went to try and talk to my father.” Christine smooths some of the Raoul’s sweaty hair back from her forehead. “To try and…say goodbye to Erik. To try and…find a way forward. I realized last night that I haven’t been living, really, just surviving, and I want to do more, now. I just…I didn’t think he’d be there, in the daylight, so I didn’t think much of going on my own. I keep trusting in his better nature too much and I…I shouldn’t…I didn’t…”

“The flat,” Raoul finishes, shivering. “I know. It makes me wonder how long he’s been watching.”

Christine runs her finger up and down Raoul’s cheek. “My brave young suitor,” she says, softly, sadly, like she might start crying again. “Thank you. For coming. I was trying to keep him out of my head. Hearing your voice finally snapped the connection.”

“I saw you trying,” Raoul admits, a tear slipping loose from her eye, and she toys with one of Christine’s curls as a distraction. “You’re brave too, you know. I’ll remind you of it, until you believe it.”

“Raoul I…” Christine hesitates. “I know he keeps saying things to you, about how you’re not a man, or calling you names, before, but please don’t…I don’t want him twisting up how you think I feel about you. Whatever the world may say to us, whatever he may say, I love you.”

Raoul reaches up, tapping Christine’s nose. “Oh, my darling. I love you too.”

Christine smiles, and they cling tight to each other as the fiacre hurtles toward the de Chagny house.

For all her talk of Christine keeping things from her, Raoul knows she’s delayed giving Philippe information to stop him from worrying, but this time, she’ll tell him the whole truth.

Because she needs his help.


End file.
